Call to improve rules on detaining asylum-seekers

EU member states should be allowed fewer grounds for detaining asylum-seekers and should conduct faster judicial reviews of detention, according to a European Parliament report by Spanish Socialist MEP Antonio Masip Hidalgo. The proposed changes to the European Commission’s December 2008 ‘asylum package’ will be discussed by the Parliament’s civil liberties committee on Monday (16 March).

An asylum-seeker should be detained after an initial interview only if there is an “unjustifiable failure to co-operate with the verification process”, according to the report. National security grounds should be invoked only “if there is evidence showing that the applicant is likely to pose a real and current risk”.

Some member states prefer broader grounds for detention, admitted Masip Hidalgo. “There are different points of view between the Council of Ministers and the Parliament on this but it shouldn’t be an obstacle,” he told European Voice.

The committee will also examine calls for tougher obligations on national authorities when they deal with asylum-seekers who have come via other member states. The Commission has already proposed limiting the scope of the Dublin regulation, which allows asylum-seekers to be sent back to the member state they first arrived in to make their application.

It recommends allowing a suspension of transfers when member states can not provide adequate protection or standards for asylum-seekers. But Dutch Liberal MEP Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert wants to go further. The report she will present would force countries to allow officials from other member states to assist them in addressing their problems, and foresees a binding law by 2012.

She said this would improve EU solidarity with member states on the front-line of immigration and asylum flows. But she added: “Over-burdening is never an excuse for poor conditions, as in Malta.” In Malta, asylum-seekers are automatically detained and can be held for up to one year.

Kris Pollet, of Amnesty International, said the reports were an improvement on the Commission proposal.

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Helena Psaila

I believe that immigrants should be detained for a short period like one month in order to teach them basics about the host country, like language, cultural ethics, work practices, religious no-nos, etc, and so that they can be screened by doctors and psychologists.

At present, Malta’s detention policy allows migrants to be detained for months on end, and this does no good. Moreover, these months of detention are not used to educate the immigrants.

After immigrants are released from detention, they should not be left to fend entirely for themselves. A system like parole would surely help, with new immigrants having to return back to base once a week to speak to a councillor about his/her new life.